


Black Flowers Blossom

by TallysGreatestFan



Category: Babylon 5
Genre: Angst, Depression, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Mental Health Issues, Recovery, Suicidal Thoughts, unfinished work
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-01
Updated: 2020-12-01
Packaged: 2021-03-09 22:27:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,112
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27813784
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TallysGreatestFan/pseuds/TallysGreatestFan
Summary: The darkness of Delenns past catches up with her
Relationships: Delenn/Lennier
Comments: 2
Kudos: 6





	Black Flowers Blossom

The cold fear drenches up in her already at the second day, as it is not much more than a vague sadness, a vague thinking more than normally. Delenn is on a diplomatic visit to earth, and of course the topic Earth-Minbari-War and all its victims comes up, and she says to herself that of course she feels sadness and despair and devouring guilt from that and from the way the people look at her and the reporters treat her, but has witnessed this often enough by far to know that this isn’t true. She can’t escape. Only try to continue her work and don’t let it show. Wait until it is over. Even if she already don’t believes anymore that it will ever be over.

She tries to distract herself in the short time where she isn’t working in her bureau or discussing with other heads of Government, reading books she should like or watch plays and series she should find engaging, but it brings her no joy. Only more despair. These people suffer so much.

She tries to relax as her soul healer told her, let things happen naturally, but how can she be relaxed when the all encompassing dread waits for her as one outcome (as the inenvitable outcome, she knows that by now).

“Is everything going well? You sound a bit flat.”, Lennier asks at the third day over the com.

“Yes. I… I am just a bit agitated due to visiting earth and all of this.”, she doesn’t really believes it, but she wants to so badly, has to. She has to fight it.

The night afterwards is the last time she really sleeps. But as she awakes she dreads to stand up, can physically feel the fear it her chest. Somehow, she manages nevertheless. She has to. She has to do this for the good of the still so fragile Interstellar Alliance.

The talking, the discussions, the speeches are exhausting, and why are they all so bleak and hopeless suddenly? Do they all feel the impending doom too?

John makes another of his speeches, and suddenly she feels painful longing for him, her ex since almost half a year. Not love. Simply wishing she could be safe with him again, safe from her past, safe from what she did. What she is. But she can’t come back to him anymore. That path ended long ago. And despair rushes in waves over her as she realizes, threatens to drown her. She has to breath in deeply or else she wouldn’t be able to withstand the emotion, regardless of that reporters are looking. Only a moment, then her façade is back, and she looks into the hall confidently and unreadable.

Coming back to her hotel suite is even worse than the political events, because there is nothing she has to do. Nothing to keep her mind busy. She tries to decide what to do, but she is so exhausted, and simply don’t manages to. And so she sits there and the thoughts come like barbwire and cut into her soul and she wants to escape, tries to collect the power to stand up and at least try to distract herself, but she has not enough power anymore. Every time the dull pain drowns every little power to move.

She sais to herself that it are only three more days on Earth, and as soon as she is back to Minbar, it will become better.

She counts every day. They come and go in a blur of tasks so exhausting that she uses all her power on them and sharp pain in moments and duller hopelessness in every second und nights in which she wishes she could sleep but just thinks and thinks and thinks, and remembers. She has truly done so much evil.

Somewhen, it is morning, and she realizes that she hasn’t slept again, despite her needing all the sleep she can get, she is so exhausted. She is so afraid of the day, of all the pain it will bring, that she could cry, but she is the Vice President of the Interstellar Alliance and the Leader of the Anla’Shok, she is not allowed to show weakness, especially here on earth, where she is hated trough the propaganda of the Clark-dictatorship.

But she does cry, allows herself to every evening when Lennier calls her (no, she is not alright, it wears out her soul more than she expected, but don’t worry, she can take it), and she can see how he tries not to show his worries, and the tenderness in his voice comforts her. She relishes this comfort, and it is the only time in this days where she feels something vaguely resembling happiness. But it hurts that he isn’t here beside her, so that she can hug him and lay her head on his chest and feel his lean but so strong arms around her.

It will surely become better as soon as she comes back to Minbar, Lennier says.

It does not.

As she leaves the shuttle and sees him standing between two rows of guards, she runs for him and hugs him tightly. He is finally back with her. The rock under her feet. Now everything only can get better, can it? She kisses him, and he hugs her back, and she feels tears of relief stream down her face. Now she has someone to talk to. She don’t has to hide and fear someone sees anymore.

He has cooked a complicated dish with noodles and mushrooms and algae that should look delicious, and a part of her notices how good it smells and tastes. But it doesn’t reaches her. She has to force the forkfuls of it down, and after a few, even that makes her feel nauseous and as if she is going to choke.

“You have cooked so well… but I am just not hungry, I’m sorry.”, and she realizes with how much love Lennier has made this, and how much time he sacrifices, and almost has to cry again for not being able to honor that.

“I’m sorry to hear that.”, he sounds truly worried. He shouldn’t apologize, she is the one who has to. And she doesn’t deserves his empathy. Not after what she has done, and not after all she has done to him – and now that horrible certainty is back too.

“Is it possible for you to eat at least two forkful more?”, he asks, concerned. He witnessed enough of this, witnessed how she almost starved herself to death after she thought Sheridan would have sacrificed himself on Zha’ha’dum, to know how dangerous this is. She does not care. What does it matter if she hungers? She deserves it. She would deserve even worse, but that is all she has in the moment.

They sit beside each other and read, and as they go to bed, he says: “You can always wake me up if it becomes too much.”

The prospect of being able to do that eases her fear a bit, and she mumbles: “Thank you.”

In the earlier days of her visit on earth she daydreamed what wonderful things she would do with Lennier as soon as she was back, but she does not feels like sex, and so she just snuggles up to him.

It feels so, so good to not sleep alone anymore, to feel his arms around her waist and his body against her back – so nice to switch up their usual position for once. For a while the despair is far away.

But it does creep back, more and more, until she feels Lenniers touch but it doesn’t reaches her anymore. The thoughts come back, too. The knowledge what a horrible person she is, how she brings only pain to those she loves. That Mayan was right to resent her after the civil war, that she broke Lennier even if he is to loyal and good to flee from her as he should, that he deserves better. The memories of the Earth-Minbari-War, that she almost annihilated humanity, all these cultural works, all these wonderful people. The Narn-Centauri war, and that she was unable to intervene, but should have, again, sacrificed so many people with their own hopes and dreams. The Shadow War, the horrible shriek of the Shadow vessels she could hear again now, all the death. The civil war on her own world, and that she had caused it by breaking the council.

She can’t bear it any longer, can’t bear the agony of knowing all of this. But she does not want to wake Lennier. He needs his rest, and he has already done so much for her, more than she deserved. He would be better off without her. All of them would.

And so she stares at the black ceiling and the forms of the room around her and wishes that the endless night would finally be over.

The next days are a blur of guilt and despair and hopelessness. It surrounds, saturates her at every moment, makes it hard to see the conferences and dialogues she has to attend and the reports and bills she has to fill out. She tries to participate more in training with her Anla’Shok, but she is so unconcentrated that she messes up the forms and gets nearly hit several times.

She feels how Lennier worries about her, sees him try to help her out of it with light, funny movies or books he reads to her or going on a walk. She feels even worse because she doesn’t manages to get out.

She goes to her weekly meetings with her Soul Healer, but it doesn’t eases the despair as she hoped, it feels as if it would do nothing.

And then, she has stopped counting how long this has been by now but it feels as if her entire life would consist of nothing else than this darkness, she lies half asleep in the darkness, fear saturating her even in her sleep, and half a idea and half a dream breaks trough the dark cotton in her mind. She remembers the crystal swords they trained with yesterday. She remembers the places the Warrior Caste Swordmistress showed them where one would bleed to death almost immediately if hit there. Half dreaming, half planning, she ponders of how she could get to the Dojos where the weapons are stored when nobody is there and take one. She is Entil’Zha, it would be easy.

It feels so peaceful. A relieve. That scares her the most, that there is not even a bit fear of death in it.

It will hurt for Lennier, possibly for John and Susan and Lennan too, and tears start to stream over her face as she realizes that she will only hurt them more, but she cant endure this any longer. All the people who sacrificed themselves so that she could life, their sacrifice simply thrown away. She is so selfish towards them. She is too weak. But she simply can’t do this anymore.

She slips out of the bed, her body feels jiggery, she could not tell if it is warm or cold. Shaking, she stumbles into the garden. She needs fresh air.

The sky with the two moons and all the stars is so beautiful. She wishes it would reach her. She wishes she could feel anything else than this bottomless darkness.

“Delenn?”, footsteps behind her. Lenniers is so in fear for her that his voice trembles slightly. He must have realized that something is very, very wrong.

“Why… why are you standing in the garden barefoot in the middle of winter? Come in, you will catch a cold.”, so desperate to keep this sounding normal, ,,What happened?”

He reaches her. He has slung his thick winter robes over his nightgown, and he caries a blanket, and lays it over her shoulders, tugs it around her body. She has to cry even harder about hew tender he is.

“What happened?”

Suddenly she is afraid, afraid for herself: “I thought about killing myself.”

_

He hears the words, but they don’t reach him for a moment. Then they do, and fear rises up in him, fear so suffocating and large that it is impossible to feel it all. Not Delenn. Please not Delenn.

He had expected that she harbored wishes like that. He can immediately recall at least three occasions where she had (could have?) tried to kill herself, when she threw herself in line of the knife that was meant for John without hesitating, as she deliberately hungered for weeks out of mourning after the attack on Zha’ha’dum, as she stepped into the starfire wheel to burn alive. But there he could still explain it away with that it was for a greater good or tradition. Had his hope this was not what it was so obviously dangerously blinded him?

But these words were unmistakable. The suddenly make the unthinkable real. How could one answer to something like that?

“I… I don’t know what to say.”

“I’m sorry.”, he can outright see how the tension leaves her, and she sinks against his side and sobbs.

“No, no, its good that you told me this.”, and, “I’m here, Delenn.”

He almost can’t bear to see her crying, see this agony in her face, but he has to be here for her.

“I fear for myself.”, she finally whimpers.

And she was right to fear for herself, he thinks, and ice cold fear rolls through him, and he has to fight back tears, too.

“I will be there with you. And now come in, where it is warmer.”, he sais tenderly and leads her back in the house. She is cold and shivering, but she does not seem to notice.

He closes the door, then prepairs the table for breakfast.

“Is there anything you are hungry for?”

“No”

“Then try at least to eat a few bites of bread, yes?”, he sais, because he still does not know what else to say.

“I am sorry that I upset you so much.”, she had calmed down a bit, but now she tears up again.

He takes her hand. Feeling her so real under his fingers, his palm, makes him realizes how horrific it would be if she wouldn’t be here anymore, and now he can’t stop the tears.

“No, no, I am so glad that you told me. You don’t have to be alone with this Delenn. I just can’t bear to see you suffer. I… I love you so much.”, there should be more to say, but he can’t find it, and hopes that is enough.

“There is a way out. And I will help you find it and I will protect you as good as I can.”

She nods, as if trying to convince herself of that.

He breathes in deeply to try to think clearly.

“When is your next appointment with your soul healer?”

“Tomorrow.”

“Good.”

He remembers what she said to him after she got her first appointment there, after yet another weeks full of sadness shortly after leaving Babylon 5: Her soul healer had said that it would be absolutely no surprise that her soul was suffering after all she had been trough, and that for her depth and amount of trauma actually medication and therapy would be needed. Delenn had declined starting medication back then, because it would have taken to long and been so difficult that it was not possible to do that along with her job as Vice President and Entil’Zha.

Medication still bears a bad connotation for him, it reminds him at that time in his youth when he had especially many problems with his age-mates and their social rules and his guardians at the monastery talked about if medication could ease the symptoms of what he had back then hateful called his disability. Even today he can feel the shame at having to take medication, remembers clearly how he argued to not have to, because needing medication would mean even more clearly that his brain was too disabled and he was to wrong to even just function otherwise, and didn’t just the worst cases, who were to messed up for any other way need medication? And so he struggled to fit in, and not show his struggle, so that he wouldn’t ever need that, and somehow, he managed.

But now, for Delenn… Weren’t this the situations for which medication was there?

“I think we should starting to talk to an Healer because of medication.”, he says.

Delenn nods apathetic, but her agreement is already a step towards something, and it eases his fear a bit.

“I will call Solenn today.”, she said.

“I can do that, and ask her or your personal healer if they know somebody specialized on medicaments that heal the soul they can trust.”, he offers. She needs every bit of power she has alone for the coming day.

Delenn gives in without even an weak discussion.

He watches how she gulps down a bit of food, seemingly with great effort.

“What will you do now, today? You don’t have anything important, you can stay home for today.”, after he had said this he realizes how naïve that sounded.

That she does not repeat to him how she has to be at every political event as Vice President and cant simply stay home when she is sick showed how less energy she has truly left. “It will be okay.”, her voice still sounds so awfully flat, ,,I will go to work just normally, and after that I hopefully can go to an healer directly.”

“You think you can manage that?”, with an aching heart, he raises his hand and strokes her cheek, as she had so often back then, on Babylon 5, damn cursed station that had brought her all this pain. Or at least brought it back.

She smiles, an weak smile, but a smile nevertheless. He feels how she leans her face towards his hand, and he is overcome with love. It hurts.

“Yes. Don’t worry. I survived the Shadow War, I will survive this. You will be back from working with the Anla’Shoks historicans, and I will come back to you.”

He gulps upon hearing it so clearly that this is a matter of life and death for her. But he trusts her and he trusts her judgment.

She dresses, far more slowly than usually, powerless, and as she is finished she waits a moment at the door. Then she reaches for him and hugs him tightly, and lays her face against his neck, and he hugs her back and has to do his best not to cry.

“I love you.”, she mumbles so quietly that he can barely hear it, and he answered: “I love you too.”

Then she goes, and he stays back and tries to forgot the sickening feeling that this is the last time he will see her alive.

He can’t help it, the tears come as soon as he sits back, and he cries and cries and can’t stop. He is hers, she is who gives his live a purpose (even if she has said that thinking like this is unhealthy and negates his own importance, but it is how he feels still), how could he live without her? Her dying without ever seeing the light again, killing herself because it is still better than to be caught in this darkness – the thought is too horrible to think, but he thinks it nevertheless, and so he cries even harder. How much must she suffer. She, who is the kindest soul, the best person he knows and who does not deserve to suffer like this. But he knows her good enough to know that she would see this otherwise, that she thinks she deserves it for what she did in the war. And that hurts, too.

Somewhen, he is too exhausted to cry further, and only dull sadness and dull fear remain. He sits up and finally makes the call that he will be a few hours later at work, he has to arrange some very important things.

Making Videocalls makes him still uncomfortable, somehow it is even harder to read the faces of the people he is talking with, but he has learned well to force himself over this uncomfortableness in his diplomatic service.

He calls both Delenns soul healer and her personal healer, and then searches after informations on the few healers they mention.

One is specialized on treating non-neurotypical people with illnesses of the soul, Telepathy, Focusless Brain, Scared Heart and – it feels like a light punch in the gut – Structure Brain. He does not like this term, never had, because his brain is everything but structured, but it is still better than the human term, autism. It had the ring of “if you have this disability you are doomed to become an egoistical burden to everybody around you” that had haunted him his whole life.

He shakes his head. His own distrust on psychiatrists aside, he starts to think that this doctor might know the most how to deal with Delenns half-human, unique body chemistry, because aren’t non-neurotypical ways to be not caused by different pathways, different brain chemistry, and isn’t that not the closest to what Delenn is now?

And so he calls this Healer. It goes well, at least one tiny splash of luck at this horrible day; Delenn is a great soul of their people, of course the Healer can find time for her, and he knows Solenn.

He immediately texts Delenn the time of the appointment. As she not answers immediately, panic creeps up in him, has she done something to herself? He has to breath slowly, in and out, and concentrate on what his senses are showing him, one after the other, as he learned in the monastery, just to not burst into tears. There is another explanation. She is simply busy. She has to. Right? Has she?

He can’t concentrate enough on anything useful, so he just paces around, until the com-unit finally beeps.

It is simple text, “Okay, we meet at home before.”, but it makes him sag on the sofa with relieve.

After that, he finally goes to work, but he can’t concentrate. His colleagues are polite enough to just help him but not scorn him. Still he can’t stop with thinking at Delenn, and all the ways she could harm herself right now. She is so smart, she would know far too many. He tries not to think it, but the thought comes again and again. What if she is already dead when he comes home?

He feels slightly nauseous as he comes home and waits for her. Don’t think about it. A part of him wants to turn on the TV to see if they are reporting something about her, but he fears too much.

Finally, he hears the door to their house chime open. Immediately he runs to greet her.

Her face bears the same hopeless exhaustion it had when she left, but as she sees him it lights up. She smiles (even if her eyes are still to bleak).

He is not sure what he feels in this moment, relief so great it hurts, love, only now realized fully what it would have meant to lose her. It is good but it hurts. She pulls him into a tight hug and kisses him, deeper than they have since all of this started, but it is not passion, it is reassurance that he is still with her, still loves her.

As they break, they continue to stand in their embrace, and she lays her head onto his shoulder and buries her face in his neck.

“I’m here.”, he says, and it is an stupid thing to say, not enough, but it seems to be enough for her. They prepare for the appointment; Delenn still with these slow, powerless movements. They take a shuttle, but land half way to the psychiatrists office and switch discretely to another shuttle a previous Anla’Shok trainings mission left there. Delenn wears a hood during the transfer. They cant possibly let anyone track their shuttle, on earth mental illnesses are still heavily stigmatized and that Delenn suffers from one could be used against her. Lennier has to fight down a surge of hate against the humans, how can they be space faring and still so barbaric?

Finally they are at the doctors office, and he takes her hand. Asking for medical help will be the first step to get better.

**Author's Note:**

> As I first watched Babylon 5, I did not understand why Delenn was so eager to sacrifice herself. Why would you get such a stupid idea as starving yourself to death just because your crush died? Then came years of severe mental illness, and now I understand all to well. 
> 
> This theory that Delenn is like this and also grows so meek and pliant in the later seasons because she has severe depression hurts, but it makes just so much sense. 
> 
> I guess I just needed to process my own trauma with this. This was meant to be a lot longer, but seems as if it's just to heavy to follow through, but I love what I have so much that I already published it. No idea if I ever finish it
> 
> As always, I love comments (even the short ones)


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